Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Nine Years Might Have Been an Exaggeration

Here's a review of of DVD release of The Typewriter in the 21st Century, the closest many humble Typospherians may ever come to our fifteen minute allotment of fame. In the interest of full disclosure, I think I overstated the lifespan of that laptop and under-estimated the age of the typewriters. Doing arithmetic on-camera is stressful!

<soapbox>

Given the recent stink about the U.S. government's warrantless snooping security-minded PRISM program, I don't think the 'sphere is above inviting those partial to privacy into our fold. Typewriters: good for marshaling your thoughts, documenting them, and keeping them out of the hands and eyes of Uncle Sam, too. A shame the story didn't break sooner, or Chris and Gary could have also played up the paranoia angle. I, for one, look outstanding in a tinfoil hat.

4 comments:

You're absolutely right about the privacy. There is a way to bypass the gigantic system of PRISM and all other surveillance (as long as they're not already looking for you in particular) for well under a dollar: send a typewritten letter through the mail.

I've got the movie on my Amazon wish list, and may even have a few loose dollars for it, next month.

Would it set the wrong tone if everybody at a Type-In were wearing tin foil hats? It might generate more media coverage for our social concerns. How about if we typed the manifesto on the foil, first?

There have been suggestions that, if we do typecast postings, then our thoughts can't be digitized and owned by Big Brother. It occurred to me that OCR software (supposedly useful for converting NaNoWriMo drafts into an editable form) might be used to steal our thoughts. Then, I tried to scan my own first-drafts. I figure we're safe from scrutiny, for a while...